Simon Brooke wrote:

What you are _saying_ - not what you intend to say, but what your
abuse of English conveys - is the Indian Rope Trick, and it cannot be
done.

If you want to say the hub 'hangs from' all the spokes, do so; it
does. If you want to say it hangs slightly less from the bottom
spokes, I have no argument. If you want to say that the terms 'hangs
from' and 'stands on' are just unuseful with respect to bicycle
wheels, that would seem to me very sensible. But angels do not in the
real world dance on the heads of pins, and hubs in the real world do
not stand on spokes.

Even if you still think you're right and we're wrong, you still should
not use this terminology because it obviously miscommunicates with a
substantial subset of you audience.

The whole point of language in this discussion is to describe the situation
in a way that conveys the best understanding of the situation in the
listener.

To say that a hub hangs from the top spokes suggests that the top spokes
undergo more strain than the bottom ones, this is untrue.

To say that a hub stands on the bottom spokes suggests that the bottom
spokes undergo more strain than the bottom ones, this is true.

The words 'hangs' and 'stands' are very old and originated before the
existence of prestressed structure's. Our understanding of prestressed
structure means that we have to have a more subtle definition of those
terms.

--
Andy Morris

AndyAtJinkasDotFreeserve.Co.UK


Love this:
Put an end to Outlook Express's messy quotes
http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/oe-quotefix/